


we'll just keep each other as safe as we can

by jynersq



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 17:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2629499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jynersq/pseuds/jynersq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With their castles in the air crashing around their feet like weights, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons do the only thing they can think to. They run.</p><p>Post-<em>Turn, Turn, Turn.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll just keep each other as safe as we can

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lyrics come from the song “On Ira” (“We Will Go”) by Jean Jacques Goldman. Note: I am reposting this fic from my old account to this new one, under a new title, and with a few minor tweaks. Sorry for any confusion! 

 

* * *

_[i don't know what we're doing, i don't know what we've done, but_  


_ the fire is coming, so i think we should run, i think we should run.] _

* * *

 

It becomes rapidly apparent, the first night, that the holes in the team and in the plane are too large for salvaging. 

The Bus gapes with ragged spaces blown in metal and trust. S.H.I.E.L.D. is HYDRA, ideals are pretense, and, with their castles in the air crashing around their feet like weights, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons do the only thing they can think to. They run.

Wandering, dazed, they’re grounded only by the warmth of each other’s hands and the occasional roadside sign until they find the little inn at the end of a road, blinking its vacancy sign in the night.

Just around the corner from the reception desk, he takes her by the arm.

“Wait,” he says, and pulls the overlarge hood farther down over her forehead, to obscure her features. "Just to be safe," he says, with a humorless smile.

In response, she tugs his collar up a little bit higher toward his chin, fingers brushing against his pulse. Tear tracks on his face still shine under the lights, the skin under his eyes still painfully red.

It’s three in the morning and the receptionist gives them nary a second look, despite too-many layers on such a warm night. Still, it’s enough to set their hearts beating double-time. They tilt their chins toward the floor, to keep their faces hidden.

By some small mercy, the room key leads to the far end of a hall, a corner room tucked away on the second floor. No words are exchanged, on the way up, but he doesn’t miss the careful attention she directs to locking and bolting the door, once inside. Separate rooms hadn’t been considered.

Perched on the edge of one of the twin beds, he begins to pull off the layer after protective layer. She, too, leaves her boots by the door, shucks off her coat to stand opposite him in just her socks and the thin, black-and-white sweater.

Although the nights have been mild for weeks, the twin beds that occupy either side of the wooden night-table are still made up with a thick comforter. The room’s even just this side of stuffy, but they dare not open a window. The wooden stand below it is adorned simply, with a miniature candle to spread sweetness into the air; vanilla, a smell a little like Fitz's mother’s home. The comfort of it feels out of place.

On the floor before one of the beds, Fitz kneels, unzipping one of the backpacks pilfered from the Bus’ undamaged supply, beginning to sift through the meager supplies they’ve managed. She follows his eyes to the four water bottles, filled furtively in the kitchen sink. Six protein bars. Two sandwiches, neither with any trace of pesto aioli. The dogs will smell it.

It’s not enough to survive on, by any means, but it’ll keep them until morning. Tomorrow night, if they’re sparing. Until they know what to do.

“We can’t stay long,” he says, echoing her thoughts. His eyes flicker up to hers, the knowing silence that lingers after only broken by the muffled staccato of a woman’s coughing, down the hall.

“I’m tired, Fitz,” she says, low enough that he has to lean close to hear. She drops her eyes, shifting from foot to socked foot.

“Hey,” he says, when her breathing hitches. “I know.”

She stands forlorn on socked feet, arms wrapped around herself. He can’t leave her standing in the middle of the room like an island, so he catches her carefully by the wrist and pulls her beside him, to sit on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips beside him, below her weight, just where their shoulders brush. From the corner of his eye, he examines her profile intently.

“We can’t stay,” she says, rubbing a hand across her aching brow. This, he knows. “But there’s no S.H.I.E.L.D. to go back to.”

He can feel her deflate beside him, a slow release of air and hope. A patch within his chest aches to see the faith drain out of her, but their team is not something he can reframe with his hands, not even if he held all the burst and broken pieces.

“We don’t have to talk about it tonight,” he says, because he doesn’t know any more than she does what is to be done.

Jemma nods. Breathing out a sigh, she leans into him.

In doing so, her arm brushes against the vivid purple that blooms just under his ribs, and he swallows down a grimace. Though, not quickly enough, because she catches the brief expression, and freezes. He swallows, avoiding sudden scrutiny.

“Where does it hurt?” she asks, gently. Shifting back a few inches, so as not to exacerbate the bruise.

Everywhere, he doesn’t say.

“Only my side,” he reassures, with a self-deprecating smile that doesn’t anywhere reach his eyes. “Just landed on it wrong, I think.”

“Let me see,” she instructs, returning marginally back into her usual self. Reluctantly, he allows her to lift the edge of the sweater, exposing the harsh colors that bloom across a good part of his right side, flushing when her warm fingers meet the tender skin.

“It looks worse than it is.” He’s apologetic, as she takes in a hard breath between her teeth, mapping out the constellations of violet marks by sight.

She looks up at him briefly, forehead lined by the same faint frown that deepens the lines by her mouth.

“Anywhere else?” she asks, studying him for other sore places.

“Don’t think so,” he says, feeling the heat of discomfort crawl toward his cheeks. Eager to divert attention away from himself. They’ve bound each other’s wounds before. There's no reason that this should be any different.

She lets out a small breath, and drags herself the rest of the way together.

“We need ice,” she says, knees protesting as she stands. “I think I saw a machine in the hall.”

He’s loathe to wait for her back in the room, so he accompanies her out. Careful to avoid the hall cameras, they’re grateful for the machine’s proximity, in the little alcove just across from their door.

He holds the metal window open as she collects ice in a spare Ziploc bag, noting the ragged edges of her nails as she does. She hasn’t bitten them in years.

They make it back without incident, soft footfalls muffled by the thick carpet. The room looks smaller than it did on first sight.

This time, he’s the one to check the locks, and she doesn’t say a word when he drags the dresser by the door under the lock and bolt.

“Hold this against your side, to keep the swelling down,” she says, passing him the makeshift ice pack.

He sits back down on the twin bed laid out with his materials, eyes trained on her face as she arranges her own on the bed opposite, laying out everything for inspection.

She looks up, once, to find him staring.

“What?” she asks.

His eyes flicker to the floor, and then back up. With nothing but the thin plastic to separate the ice from his skin, the cold sears at him. He presses it closer.

“Nothing,” he says, forcing a smile. “Sorry.”

She watches him steadily, even after he looks away.

—

Spare clothes hadn’t been high in priority — they’d run out with little more than the clothes on their backs, so they crawl into their separate beds fully clothed. Covered in fabric that still carries the tang of salt, and blood, and fear. Fitz’s shirtsleeve bears the smallest bullet graze.

"Goodnight, Jemma," he offers, to the dark.

"Goodnight," she answers, and knows that it will be anything but.

The dull white-noise offered by the air conditioner isn’t loud enough to cover the sounds of their breathing. In the silence between heartbeats they comfort themselves on the steady count of each other’s breaths, and sleep does not come for a long time.

—

The clock reads three forty-five in stark red figures when he wakes himself up dry-heaving, fingers tangled in twisted sheets. Shrinking from shadows, muscles trembling from extended tension, he's taking in air like a drowning man.

Perspiration rolls off him in waves that crest and fall with the terrible coil in his stomach, soaking the pillow cover under him. Gasping, smothering, he throws the comforter back and swings upright.

Beside him, the bed-lamp’s thrown on, casting a dim yellow halo out from the lampshade. She hovers above him in the negligible light, hands stretched out before her like she can’t quite decide what to do with them.

"Fitz," she says, struggling to keep her voice steady as she untangles him from the twisted sheets, "You were having a nightmare. I had to wake you. You’re all right."

The words slip in one ear and out the other. He stares at her, uncomprehending. Her hair sticks up in an uncharacteristically messy halo about her head, illuminated by the light behind her. Sweater disheveled from sleep.

"Just a nightmare," she repeats, gently, and presses her hand to his arm, to ground him. "You’re all right."

The thin lines at her brow bely the solid words, her eyes fixed on him.

"I’m-" he gets out. Her hand slips from his shoulder when she steps aside to make room for him to make it to the small sink in the bathroom on unsteady legs.

Bracing his arms hands on either side of the sink, he gasps in air like it all might leave the room. She’s the one to calmly flick the light-switch on, behind him, reach under his arm to run the faucet.

By the time the stream of water runs frigid, he has the presence of mind to collect it in his hands, cover his face with it. An unrewarding bid to wash out the sweat and the fear.

She doesn’t ask for an explanation, just keeps her eyes trained on him as she watches his pulse calm, haltingly.

"S’fine," he manages, himself, when the concentration of cold water and perspiration on his face are roughly equal. There’s a taste like blood in the back of his mouth, and he thinks that maybe he’s bitten his cheek. "Sorry. I’m fine."

She hands him a small, square, hand-towel and he buries his face in it, scrubbing vigorously to dry his face with it.

"Wait here," she says, as though he has anywhere else to go, and steps out of the square light of the tight bathroom.

"Drink this," she says, returning from the darkened room with one of the water bottles. It’s still cold from its place in the small fridge. He swallows it quickly.

"What happened?” she asks, after a minute.

He shrugs, helplessness all over the broken line of his shoulders.

“I don’t remember,” he says, honestly. He has a pretty good idea.

She leans against the doorframe, watching him closely.

“You were shouting,” she tells him.

He breathes out a heavy sigh, holding himself up on the edge of the sink until his heart stops striking so hard.

“I’m sorry,” he gets out, runs a hand across his face to regain some small shred of composure. “Sorry I woke you. Go back to bed.”

“I don't think so,” she says, mildly, bringing a hand up to the side of his face. He avoids her eyes.

She takes his hand and leads him back into the dark of the bedroom, reaching back into the bathroom to switch the lights off again. She pulls him over to her own bed, pulling back the covers a bit farther, dropping his hand to climb in. She gestures for him to do the same.

He hesitates, eyes fixed on the slim space beside her.

“Just get in,” she says, gently.

Too exhausted to argue, he slides in, but keeps to the very to the far end of the mattress, at first. Unsure. The bed creaks when she reaches out her arms for him.

She gathers him to her so that they are only inches apart, close enough to hear the rapid beating of their hearts. A pale strip of moonlight falls through the curtains and half-across his face, illuminating the exhausted bruising under his eyes.

He fixes his eyes on her face in the darkness and she brushes a few contrary curls up onto his forehead, still faintly damp from sink water. Under her hands, his lashes falter against his cheeks, so she keeps on until she feels him start to sink further into the mattress, muscles unwinding at long last. She grows bolder, fingers traveling the frame of his face in the duskiness, as though she hasn’t known it by sight since she was sixteen, and this is her last chance to learn it.

She holds him past the point his eyes finally close, breathing in the sweat and the salt that lingers between the two of them, gunpowder and dissipating nightmares.

“I thought you had died,” he murmurs, just when she thinks he might have fallen back into sleep. So quietly that she has to lean in to hear above the clatter of the air-conditioner. The breath he lets out with it warms her neck.

She shifts closer to him, thin sheets making new wrinkles around her.

“I know, “ she says, softly. “I heard you.”

“What?” he asks, eyes flying open.

“We were in the hall,” she yields, tracing his silhouette in the dimness. “Hand, her team, Triplett, and I.”

He just stares.

“What did you hear?” he asks, almost sure that he does not want to know.

She hesitates.

“Everything,” she says, bleakly. Voice lifting at the end of the word, like a question. “Garrett, Coulson, you. Guns.”

His heart drops like a stone into his stomach.

“I was sure,” she swallows, painfully, fingers coming up to grip his shirt against her palm. “I was sure that you’d been shot.”

He buries his face in her hair, because he doesn’t quite know what else to do. He could kick himself for not asking where she’d been, sooner.

“I’m fine,” he says. It sounds like _I’m sorry._

“Nothing’s fine.” Her lips catch against his skin, and he can feel curl into the thin fabric of his shirt, just over the place where his heart is.

“I know,” he says.

He hold her close to him, soothing circles into her back with his thumb. In the corner, the air conditioner slows to its sporadic halt, leaving the silence to collect the sound of their rapid breathing.

—

In the morning, the sun sheds warmth across their curled bodies, colored faintly pink by the sheer window curtains. Soft brown hair tickles his neck, and his arm tingles with needles, her head pillowed upon it. Her feet are freezing where their legs tangle below the sheets, but he doesn’t have the heart to move her.

For a long time, he waits as she sleeps, watching the light as it catches in her hair. Her arm, slung across his chest, keeps him from stirring.

She wakes incrementally. Rousing slowly, at first, she sighs nonsense sounds against his shoulder where she sprawls beside him, long and loose.

“Time is it?” she mumbles.

“Almost nine,” he tells her, and she hums in acceptance, closing her eyes briefly again. He smothers a smile. She’s always been a slow waker.

Even half-asleep, she doesn’t miss the way he flushes when she brushes up against him, the daylight baring her true immediacy. He isn’t used to having her so close. More than half of the bed-space lies unused, sheets collecting where the pushed-together mattresses dip beneath their weight.

She draws lazy shapes on his arm, as she wakes, the lightness of her fingers through the shirt’s thin sleeve making him shiver.

For now, the sunlight has chased away the night’s tension, leaving them with clear air; he pushes back the reflexive panic as strongly as he can, determined to start the morning as best he can.

“What are we going to do?” he asks, quietly.

She lifts herself up on her elbows, to better see into his face. Soft hair trembling down around her shoulders, she’s close enough to see the red under his eyes is fading. Clear blue eyes track her face as she lingers above him, breaths feathering his lips.

Slowly, sweetly, she arches her neck and presses her mouth to his. He doesn’t move but to close his eyes, afraid to do more than hold the moment in his hands.

It’s not a kiss that asks for another. She leans back after a drawn-out heartbeat, long hair brushing against his cheek. The mattress protests as she moves over, to give back to him his space.

“What was that for?” he asks, dumbstruck.

“Nothing,” she says. Then, smile slipping, “I’m glad you’re alive.”

Outside, the chattering of birds mimic his thoughts as they circle each other. Every minute the sun rises higher, every moment drawing near to the necessity of decision.

He sighs, slips out of bed to fix their tea with the chipped kettle on the small corner stove. She rolls over to watch, pulling the covers, almost protectively, around her.

"We have to decide," he says, dropping the tea bags carefully into the mug, back to her.

She sighs, rubbing a hand over her forehead. 

“I know you think we should run,” he says, quietly. “But. I'm afraid that if we start running now, we’ll never stop.”

Just outside the room, someone crashes with zeal into the wall with what's probably a suitcase, but they freeze at the loudness, anyway. After a tense minute, when it appears no one's going to burst into the room, gun drawn, she replies, in lower tones,

“Fitz,” tugging at his heart with the name, “We don’t know we’ll be safer with them, than on our own.”

_“Jemma,”_  he says, sitting up, propping himself against the formica counter. “We can’t abandon them. Coulson’s depending on us.”

“HYDRA will be on us in hours, you realize," she says. "If they’re not already.”

“We can’t hide from this, Jem,” he says, earnestly, hands spread before him. “I know it, now. This is bigger than us. Coulson needs us," he repeats.

Contemplative, she crosses her arms across her chest. If he wanted, he could be the unstoppable force to her immovable object, and she knows it. But the morning is quiet, and neither of them want to argue.

“We left, once,” he reminds her. “We could do it again.”

She's warming up to it, but remains unconvinced.

"If it looks like we'd be better off on our own," he promises, "We'll go."

The kettle on the stove whistles and he moves to quiet it, turning away from her.

He could be right, she thinks. He often is. What is it, that they say? Safer in packs. 

She lets out a low breath.

“All right, then,” she says, and sends a small smile, only a little forced, to his back. “Let’s go find what’s left our team.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! As always, commentary and constructive criticism are very much appreciated, if you can spare the time. ♥


End file.
